Sigmund Fraud
893 all the way.
great archive footage but thats about all.
Adam Curtis documentary: The Trap
- Thread starter Kid_Eternity
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Azrael
circling Airstrip One
Irony of ironies: The Trap fell into a trap of its own making: Curtis has mistaken a perversion of negative liberty for the thing itself.
His suggestion that a twisted Cold War definition of negative liberty became the flip-side of what it despised (utopian positive liberty) was very convincing. But negative liberty is not the narrow, selfish ideology of Cold War paranoia: it is simply the belief that liberty exists in the space outside the state, as opposed to the belief that liberty can only be found within it. (Or, even more simply, negative liberty bans actions and positive liberty demands them.) Negative liberty does not exclude a positive ideology or demand we ignore the complex web of relations and desires in society: as Curtis pointed out, if it doesn't acknowledge those things, it implodes. All it says is that people can create those things best outside formal structures: it is more democratic, in a real sense, than idealistic fantasies that rest on a utopian government to become reality. (And so are doomed to failure.)
The Trap fell apart at the end by portraying Tony Blair as an apostle of negative liberty, when in reality he's the exact opposite: a believer that freedom is to be found in a vast, benevolent state, exempt from restrictions because of its special goodness. Mr Blair's attempt to harness a narrow definition of the free market as the means to his utopian ends is the "third way" -- but this bout of ideological adultery doesn't hide his true roots. The civil liberties Blair has destroyed are the embodiment of negative liberty, and he removed them because he believes the state must impose virtue. His narrow idea of "perfect people" might, or might not, have its roots in a fanatical perversion of negative liberty, but his ultimate end, and the means by which he's imposing it, belong with Rousseau.
Negative liberty does not demand that anyone outside its narrow definition of "normal" be removed by extraordinary measures: it demands that, unless one person's freedom removes freedom from another, they be left in peace. It says governments are not qualified to impose goodness. On this specific issue Curtis has distorted reality to make it fit his grand theory. So, thanks for another superb series, but remember, no one is immune from the trap …
His suggestion that a twisted Cold War definition of negative liberty became the flip-side of what it despised (utopian positive liberty) was very convincing. But negative liberty is not the narrow, selfish ideology of Cold War paranoia: it is simply the belief that liberty exists in the space outside the state, as opposed to the belief that liberty can only be found within it. (Or, even more simply, negative liberty bans actions and positive liberty demands them.) Negative liberty does not exclude a positive ideology or demand we ignore the complex web of relations and desires in society: as Curtis pointed out, if it doesn't acknowledge those things, it implodes. All it says is that people can create those things best outside formal structures: it is more democratic, in a real sense, than idealistic fantasies that rest on a utopian government to become reality. (And so are doomed to failure.)
The Trap fell apart at the end by portraying Tony Blair as an apostle of negative liberty, when in reality he's the exact opposite: a believer that freedom is to be found in a vast, benevolent state, exempt from restrictions because of its special goodness. Mr Blair's attempt to harness a narrow definition of the free market as the means to his utopian ends is the "third way" -- but this bout of ideological adultery doesn't hide his true roots. The civil liberties Blair has destroyed are the embodiment of negative liberty, and he removed them because he believes the state must impose virtue. His narrow idea of "perfect people" might, or might not, have its roots in a fanatical perversion of negative liberty, but his ultimate end, and the means by which he's imposing it, belong with Rousseau.
Negative liberty does not demand that anyone outside its narrow definition of "normal" be removed by extraordinary measures: it demands that, unless one person's freedom removes freedom from another, they be left in peace. It says governments are not qualified to impose goodness. On this specific issue Curtis has distorted reality to make it fit his grand theory. So, thanks for another superb series, but remember, no one is immune from the trap …
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gnoriac
lowly seer
The 3rd one was best of the lot, I guess at it related more to contemporary events.
And Azrael, I couldn't disagree more, you sound like the BNP whingers down my local, going on about that awful socialist Blair. I think it's the opposite, you got it the wrong way round.
All in all though, I still don't reckon the link to game theory. The new rightwing libertarianism is, imho, just the same old reactionary laissez-faire shite that's been going around for the last 200 years or so but dressed up with a new intellectualk respectability. At least in the eyes of the perpetrators.
And Azrael, I couldn't disagree more, you sound like the BNP whingers down my local, going on about that awful socialist Blair. I think it's the opposite, you got it the wrong way round.
All in all though, I still don't reckon the link to game theory. The new rightwing libertarianism is, imho, just the same old reactionary laissez-faire shite that's been going around for the last 200 years or so but dressed up with a new intellectualk respectability. At least in the eyes of the perpetrators.
Azrael
circling Airstrip One
Kindly withdraw that libellous comparison with the BNP right now. (The bootboys in your local spend their time debating liberty as an abstract concept? Wow, erudite bunch you've got!)gnoriac said:
I didn't say a word about an "awful socialist Blair". I questioned Curtis's view of him as the apostle of negative liberty. I gave my reasons. You don't agree, fine, give some of your own.
Or post unrelated and nonsensical libels and let me win by default.
Azrael, what I inferred from the programme was that in a sense, Blair is schizophrenic on the issue. On the one hand he has been influenced by the prevailing political orthodoxy Curtis has been talking about, revolving around negative liberty, game theory, public choice economics, the primacy of the market, etc. However, simultaneously, because he has an image of himself which will not allow him to perceive himself as a mere public servant and technocrat; he must have some big, over-arching project to be remembered for, and what his messianic personality has latched onto is to become a latter-day champion of the oppressed and the dispossessed in the most dramatic fashion he can conceive of (namely by waging wars against 'evil' people). You could, of course argue that this very dichotomy reinforces Curtis's thesis that 'the trap' is not only an undesirable philosophical basis for government, but also an ultimately unimplementable one.
Azrael
circling Airstrip One
Mr Blair's moral-schizophrenia, imperialism and delusions of adequacy are all self-evident, but Curtis clearly said the Prime Minister's attack on our civil liberties is rooted in negative liberty. Which makes absolutely no sense when you consider the origin of those liberties (Hobbes's "everything that isn't illegal is permitted" concept is the foundation of negative liberty).
To be honest I don't think the positive/negative liberty theme quite paid off: he'd have been far better framing his programme in idealism v. pragmatism, which was, after all, the real message.
I don't know what Curtis's politics are (The Trap's wistful lament for the death of benevolent civil servants suggests Bevinite state-socialism, but in The Power of Nightmares he suggested that ideology had failed, and before that, in The Century of the Self, he appeared to favour a wise-elite governing the public) but he seriously misrepresented the ideological roots of liberty in the final episode. A shame, because his wider point (that any economic credo becomes obnoxious and self-destructive when dogmatised) was perfectly good.
Overall I'm still not convinced all the leaps in his "trap" hold up. (Is game theory really behind our view of freedom?) It didn't equal The Power of Nightmares in mischievous agitprop, or The Mayfair Set in economic analysis. I still reckon that The Century of the Self is Curtis's best work: the theory is ingenious and convincing, and the twist in the final episode is superb.
To be honest I don't think the positive/negative liberty theme quite paid off: he'd have been far better framing his programme in idealism v. pragmatism, which was, after all, the real message.
I don't know what Curtis's politics are (The Trap's wistful lament for the death of benevolent civil servants suggests Bevinite state-socialism, but in The Power of Nightmares he suggested that ideology had failed, and before that, in The Century of the Self, he appeared to favour a wise-elite governing the public) but he seriously misrepresented the ideological roots of liberty in the final episode. A shame, because his wider point (that any economic credo becomes obnoxious and self-destructive when dogmatised) was perfectly good.
Overall I'm still not convinced all the leaps in his "trap" hold up. (Is game theory really behind our view of freedom?) It didn't equal The Power of Nightmares in mischievous agitprop, or The Mayfair Set in economic analysis. I still reckon that The Century of the Self is Curtis's best work: the theory is ingenious and convincing, and the twist in the final episode is superb.
Well I thought it was a great one last night. The end made me feel marginally happy 
He's full of big assertions & big ideas, but fundamentally I agree with some of his principles. (His accuracy might not be up to scratch though, admittedly but I don't really know enough of what he's on about to argue about this). I think it was a good series, for mainstream TV.
He's full of big assertions & big ideas, but fundamentally I agree with some of his principles. (His accuracy might not be up to scratch though, admittedly but I don't really know enough of what he's on about to argue about this). I think it was a good series, for mainstream TV.
Barking_Mad
Non sibi sed omnibus
Long but interesting post on this by Lenin's Tomb
http://leninology.blogspot.com/2007/03/were-not-worthy-two-cheers-for-adam.html
http://leninology.blogspot.com/2007/03/were-not-worthy-two-cheers-for-adam.html
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